Google Search and the State of the Union

As President Obama delivered his annual State of the Union address Wednesday evening, Google was simultaneously tracking search queries, and they released their findings on the Google Politics Google+ page.

Here are some of the trends:

The top four rising search terms during the State of the Union:

“green ribbon meaning”

“John Boehner”

“Speaker of the House”

“Joe Biden”

The top four related search terms with State of the Union:

“green ribbon”

“live”

“Obama”

“how long is”

Various Republicans and Democrats attending the address wore green ribbons on their lapels to honor the 26 students and staff members of Sandy Hook Elementary School, who were killed in December’s shooting in Newtown, Conn. “Green ribbon” was the most popular query on Google during the speech.

The top four related search terms with Obama:

“State of the Union”

“speech”

“Obamacare”

“How old is”

Search interest during the State of the Union:

Google started measuring search interest at 9 p.m. ET, and when President Obama officially began his speech around 9:15 p.m., Google says search interest spiked to the highest point of the evening. Search interest spiked again around the last 20 minutes of the speech.

Featured image credit: Kathrin Tausch

How did you watch the address? Did you “second-screen” the speech with social media or a search engine?

About Boyd Norwood

Boyd Norwood is the president of SEO.com. He came to the company as the director of search engine marketing in September of 2010 and worked with several teams and hundreds of clients since then. He has worked in the industry for 10 years. He enjoys spending time with his wife and 4 boys, playing ping pong and basketball, and is always up for talking about some conspiracy or another.